Out-Going Lines

He is guilty of more overts than he is telling the auditor ...

L. RON HUBBARD

Out-going security check was administered by Mike Glassman's young
son, Danny, who was working on staff. Danny slid into his chair and
revved up the meter like an air ace in his cockpit. He was unsmiling,
and had a squint that unnerved me. The questions were much like those of
the incoming sec check, but this time something was drastically wrong
with the needle.

"There's something Out," Danny snarled. "I'm going to have to check
each question twice. Is there a withhold? I have a read on that.
Something's wrong here and I'm going to find out what it is."

With that my heart slid into my stomach.

"C'mon, what is it?" Danny hammered. My brain scurried desperately
for wrongs I had committed.

"I was kidding around about the Sea Org."

"All right. Any more on that?"

"About the book-selling mission."

"Right. Who with? I said WHO WITH?"

"With Marilyn, the cook at Fyfield Manor, where I've been staying.
But she didn't say anything, just listened to me."

"Okay" -- taking it all down -- "I'll check that on the meter. Is
there a withhold? That's clean. Are you here for the wrong reasons? I'm
getting a read on that. Look, there's something here and I'm going to
get it if it takes all day. Now GIVE! It's better you clean it up now.
Do you want me to have to put you through a Joburg?"

I didn't know what was causing reads at this point. I was packed and
ready to leave, my friends were expecting me in London, and this
teen-aged bastard had to louse it all up -- he was what was
dirtying the needle.

"I had a funny feeling about my Solo Audit."

"Okay. What about it?"

"I wasn't quite satisfied with one of my EWs."

"All right. Why not?"

"One of them could be either a noun or a verb. I may've made a
mistake."

"THANK YOU. Put down the cans. Now, you've invalidated yourself by
questioning your Solo Release. You are a Solo Release, right? If I hear
you invalidating yourself again I'm sending you straight to Ethics, is
that understood? If there's anything else, out with it or it'll go a lot
harder for you in the long run."

There was something else, the question of the gruff but well-meaning
Instructor's competence. Hadn't he on more than one occasion broken the
rules by volunteering his own opinion, saying more about a Hubbard
Bulletin than merely citing a page in the permitted way? I managed to
jam that thought so far down into my system that it didn't come close to
the surface again. Apparently I'd gone through enough to loosen the
needle and get through the remaining questions.

As I left the cubicle I was close to numbness, with only my queasy
stomach to remind me that I had betrayed Marilyn. I went into lines and
began the long wait for another, briefer, out-going sec check, this one
at Auditing Worldwide. I stood in line while the Worldwide Ethics
Officer rapidly checked preclears out at her desk. This Ethics lady's
face wore a dolorous expression. She looked exhausted. In a flash of
intuition, I perceived that she might be Gerald Tyber's ex-wife, who had
put him through so much trouble.

As I stepped up to her desk, she turned away from the E-meter for a
moment to look at me. Perhaps my nervousness reminded her of her own
experiences going through lines.

"Pick up the cans, please." She looked into my eyes and the faint
sweetness of a smile softened the corners of her mouth. "Are you here to
steal confidential materials?"

"No."

"Thank you. That's clean," she said gently. She smiled again, ever so
slightly, and a warm current ran through my body.

"Are you a member of a suppressive group?"

"No."

"Good. That's clean. Okay, that's it."

She had spotted the floating needle. The security checks were over
and I was on my way to the Advanced Org in Edinburgh.

The intent of other beings was to make this preclear into a willing
or unwilling but at least obedient slave.

L. RON HUBBARD

When I got to my friends' house in London, where I was going to spend
the night, the first thing I wanted to do was get into a warm bed for a
couple of hours. Ann and Nicholas Dalmas sensed that all was not well,
and gave me a hot-water bottle to take with me. After my nap we played
with their two little girls and had dinner.

It felt strange being with non-Scientologists. I was relieved to be
away from the manor but my nerves were still jumping. I tried to act
carefree. When the children were in bed, Ann, Nicholas and I sat in the
living room talking. Ann was worried.

"I've read about these Scientology people in the newspapers. They've
got some sort of large boat and a girl who went aboard it disappeared."

"Look, Ann," I said, "Scientology has always gotten a rotten press in
England. These stories are based on rumors. I can probably piece
together what really happened and give you a very good explanation for
it. Now, this girl who `disappeared' probably left her parents to join
what's known as the Sea Org, the crew on Ron Hubbard's yacht. During her
training, her parents were found to be `suppressive' to her -- that is,
they held her back from her own goals -- and she disconnected from them.
They haven't heard from her since, and they're naturally worried. Simple
enough, isn't it?"

"Now, Ann," Nicholas put in, "Bob knows what he's doing, and it seems
to be precisely what he wants to do."

"Wait," she said, "let me read you both a story I wrote just a few
weeks ago."

Ann got her composition book and read us a horrific tale about beings
from another galaxy who came to earth and enslaved us -- worst of all,
with our own full cooperation. Parts of her story were remarkably
similar to certain details in the E-F Packs. How could Ann have known of
such things?

In a panic, I spewed out the benefits the Lower Grades had brought me
in New York. Ann impatiently waited for me to finish.

"For God's sake, Bob, don't go on with this thing. Stop now while
you're still safe. You can stay here with us for a while. The music life
in this city is fabulous and I'm sure that Nick, with all his
connections, can help you find work right away."

I didn't know what to say. What did I really know about Scientology
when thus far I had been only at the Hill? The people I'd dealt with
were merely on the periphery of the group. In Edinburgh, I would be with
members of the inner ranks who would know how to guide me in my struggle
with the reactive mind.

Ann was looking at me as if she were searching for the words or
gestures that would reach me. I was very fond of her, yet now she was
taking on the characteristics of a suppressive.

The three of us went into Nick's music study, where I played a
classical work and some comic improvisations on the piano. This failed
to lighten the atmosphere. I could feel Ann's eyes on me. She had said
she feared I was being drawn deeper into a trap, one from which I might
never escape; but from what I had learned at the Hill, she was the
entrapped one, seeking to pull me into the depths with her. Nicholas was
quiet. He wished to be fair and impartial, but his wife's distress had
unmanned him.

We retired at midnight. When I awoke the sky was barely light. I
smoked, and heard on the sidewalk below my window the footsteps of
people on their way to early morning jobs.

At breakfast, Ann was still uneasy but had given up trying to
dissuade me from going to Scotland.

"I guess you could tell I was in some sort of a jam leaving the
Hill," I said, "but really, it's all straightened out now."

"Come back to us, Bob, when you're finished with this," she said.

I left for Edinburgh on the ten o'clock train with the lunch Ann had
packed. Across the aisle from me sat a young woman of about twenty. I
stared at her legs now and again during the five-hour train ride. She
was just a wog girl with a vacant expression on her face ... probably
suppressive to someone.